


Shared Nightmares

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 12:19:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5585140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After similar nightmares wake both Firo and Czes up in the middle of the night, Firo hopes his secretive roommate might open up to him a little more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shared Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Houjicha](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Houjicha).



> Christmas present for houjicha of tumblr, who was musing about the awkward dis/connection between Czes and Firo. She suggested that they might be able to have an honest conversation after similar nightmares. I, er, got the nightmares part right, but forgot to make it a *happy* fic, because of who I am as a person.
> 
> Also, I have been influenced by surskitty‘s headcanons of Firo-Ennis-Czes dynamics! They’re very good headcanons.

Firo starts awake, his right hand swinging out into the empty air of his own dark bedroom. He’s alone, he realizes a second later. He’s alone, and not in danger. Szilard is as dead as whoever’s memory of being devoured he just dreamed is.

That doesn’t stop his heart from racing.

He sits up and turns on a light, only to cover his face with his left hand immediately thereafter. His right hand clenches into a fist, nails biting through skin that heals before blood can drip onto the comforter. Immortal. In the light of day, the word might as well mean “invincible” in Firo’s mind. But at night, on nights like these, he’s all too aware of his one weakness.

In any case, he doubts he’ll be going back to sleep anytime soon. He pushes the comforter aside and swings his legs out of bed, listening for a moment to make sure that Ennis hasn’t woken when he did. She does, sometimes—because of their link?—and something in him thinks she’s done so again tonight, but the room across the hall is silent. Good. He doesn’t want to worry her.

He gets out of bed and heads for the kitchen, resisting the urge to hit the hall light as well. But before he makes it to the kitchen, a noise catches his attention—something that sounds like a choked scream.

_Czes?_

Firo’s concern for his other housemate is immediate, and he knocks lightly on Czes’s door. “Czes? You okay?”

There’s no answer, and Firo considers leaving it at that. Czes… doesn’t _dislike_ Firo, per se, but there’s a wall between the two of them that Czes seems to build deliberately, and Firo does his best not to overstep the kid’s boundaries. But the next sound he hears from inside the room is a whimpered “No…” followed by a cry, and Firo can’t let that go. He bursts into the room.

“Czes?!”

There’s no invader, thank god, but even in the half-light he can tell that Czes’s eyes are squeezed shut and his face twisted with fear. Firo rushes forward and shakes Czes’s small body. “Czes, wake up—you’re having a nightmare—”

In the next moment, he lunges backwards as Czes’s eyes fly open and his right hand shoots out towards Firo’s head. He lets go of Czes’s shoulder to step back and holds his hands where they can be seen, waiting for Czes’s mind to catch up to his body.

“It’s me. It’s Firo. I’m sorry, Czes, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

The Immortal’s breath is coming heavily, and when his eyes focus on Firo, they go wide in horror.

“F—Firo—” His voice wavers, and he gives what might be a shake of his head, or maybe just a shudder. “No, I didn’t—I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” Firo answers evenly, his hands still held where they’re visible. “I’m gonna turn the light on, okay?”

Czes nods numbly, and Firo flips the switch. With the lights on, it’s even more obvious that Czes is shaking. Firo wants to sit down next to him, or wrap an arm around him; these are things he’s seen Maiza do, and he’s seen the eternal childlike expression fade from Czes’s face to be replaced by a contemplative one for just a few moments. But his youthful smile always pops back into place when he catches Firo looking.

 _He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders,_ Maiza said once, and Firo can see that it’s true.

“I was gonna grab myself some water. Do you want to come to the kitchen and have some with me?”

Czes’s face crumples in uncertainty.

“Or I can bring a glass in here for you?” Firo tries again.

Czes bites his lip, but finally he nods. “Okay,” he says in a small voice.

“Great. I’ll go get that. I’ll be right back, so don’t worry.”

The admonition not to worry feels like a little much, and normally Czes would’ve smiled brightly and reassured Firo that he’d be fine. The fact that he doesn’t do that now only makes the reassurance seem more out of place. But Firo tries not to overthink it as he reaches the kitchen, pulls two glasses out of the cabinet, and turns on the tap.

As he fills the first glass, he notices that his own hands are shaking. He’d felt the tips of Czes’s fingers brush his forehead before he pulled back, and that really isn’t what he’d needed tonight. Not after that nightmare. It’s not that he’s scared of Czes—he trusts Czes unflinchingly, even if Czes can’t feel the same way about him—but with all of Szilard’s memories inside of him, there’s a weird similarity between himself and Czes that neither of them really know what to do with. For the most part, they put it aside, and Firo accepts the way Czes presents himself. But he’d watched Czes’s nightmare-induced terror change to horror at what he’d nearly done, and he doesn’t want Czes to feel guilty about it.

 _Listen, Czes, I had a nightmare tonight, too,_ he tries out inside his head. And, _I woke up the same way you did, right hand out, ready to… defend myself, no matter what it took._

He thinks of the way Czes is around Maiza sometimes, his eyes downcast and introspective, and wonders if Czes would be the same way with him, even if it was just tonight. Even if it was just a few minutes.

 _You don’t have to say anything. But if you ever_ _wanna_ _talk about it with me, you can, alright? I don’t want you to feel like you can’t say anything to me._

Yeah, that sounds about right, he decides. It lays all of Firo’s cards on the table without forcing Czes’s hand. He reviews the words one more time as he fills the second glass, then shuts the tap off and returns to Czes’s room.

“Here you go,” he says, handing over one glass. Czes accepts it and gulps the water down. But when he lowers the glass again, before Firo can even take a deep breath to say what he wants to say, Czes’s face looks youthful and open and innocent once more. The face of someone who’s ten, not two hundred and thirty.

“Thank you, Firo,” he says. His voice isn’t shaking anymore. “I’m sorry about what happened when you woke me up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Firo answers, and the words he’d been about to say retreat from the tip of his tongue to a lump in his chest. He could still say them, but he has the sense that they aren’t the right thing to say anymore, if they ever had been. He swallows them, and instead repeats, “Yeah. Don’t worry about it, Czes. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Yeah…” Czes raises the glass once more and finishes off his water. Firo takes that as a cue to do the same. When he lowers his own glass, Czes is swinging his legs back and forth gently and wearing a faint echo of his normal smile. “I feel better now, Firo. I think I’m going to go back to sleep.”

“Oh, uh… okay.”

Firo takes the empty glass that Czes offers to him, his shoulders sinking. Czes lies down and pulls the covers up to his chin. He doesn’t close his eyes, not willing to lower his guard until Firo leaves, and even if it’s just business as usual, it kind of stings. Firo bites back a sigh and turns away, his hand on the doorknob.

“Hey, Czes?” he says.

“Yeah?” comes Czes’s reply.

“You want me to call Maiza in the morning and see if he’ll have dinner here tomorrow night? It’s been a while.”

He sends a glance, subtle as he can, over his shoulder, and he catches Czes smiling: something relieved and bitter and out of place on a ten-year-old. 

“Thanks, Firo. That sounds great.”


End file.
